Saturday, July 09, 2011

What Can You Lose?

Apparently, a head coach, your star player, 10 games of the season - along with your self-respect (if you had any).

What you don't lose is the scholarships or any ban on bowl games during a self-imposed two year probation.

Oh, I'm talking about Ohio State and their football program, by the way.

Ohio State vacated all their wins for the 2010 season on allegations they violated NCAA regulations. Yeah, they also vacated their bowl loss too, but I have yet to hear if they have to, or will, give back all the revenue and bonuses associated with it.

The players, of course, can just sell their championship rings for tattoos.

Oh wait.............

That is kind of the joke of the situation. Selling rings for ink is what allegedly got them into this hot water. It seems minor, but these were just the morons to get caught. Of course were bigger offenders when it came to taking gifts and cash for just being a Buckeye. ...sorry, a Buckeye athlete. Regular student do not get these perks.

My favourite was Terrell Pryor coming to Jim Tressel's resignation in his brand new carwith temporary tags on them and being photographed by most major news outlets. Oh - and he had a suspended license. Feeling entitled much?

But that the players claim 'hardship' for money as the reason to sell memorabilia seems funny to me. While I have no idea what their home life is like, for most, they are on a partial if not full scholarship. They have academic advisers to get them through their class schedule and someone to do their laundry.

Hardship? Hardly.

OSU also reverted Tressel's resignation to a "retirement", no doubt allowing him to keep some benefits that he'll need, in case he didn't save anything from his multi-million dollar per year contract.

I don't feel sorry for Tressel, the players or the program one little bit. And it's not just Ohio State, most college teams all do these kinds of things. You would think with USC and Michigan's sanctions that were imposed by the NCAA that programs would clean up their shit, but apparently they all think they are untouchable.

Even now, I think that OSU thinks that by putting themselves on double-secret probation and getting rid of Tressel, they will thwart any additional actions from the NCAA. ...and they probably will, but mostly because Pryor is gone and no longer has to participate in the investigation, so it will be harder for the NCAA to make a case or prove some allegations.